There is no lack of information to sift through when it comes to online performance, so it helps to narrow the field down and focus on several important factors. Knowing what these respective numbers mean and why they matter is a key part of any good digital marketing strategy—one we do all the time!

So, are you ready to dive into a crash course on the metrics that matter to your online presence? We promise it won’t hurt.

Conversions

Let’s start with one of the most directly felt influences on your business “in real life.”

A conversion is a recorded goal action. To us, this often means an action that results in a potential customer for you, such as when a stranger is converted into a site visitor, or the site visitor is converted into a sales lead, etc.

When someone fills out your online contact form and reaches the subsequent “Thank You” page for it, that can count as a conversion. Likewise, if someone taps the phone number on your website from their mobile device to give you a call, that can also be counted as a conversion.

Multiple conversion goals can be set up and monitored within Google Analytics. Please note that this is not always a way to know all the contacts people make to you through your website.

For example, someone who visits your website, sees your number, and then dials it into their phone manually (instead of clicking the number) is not going to be counted, as Google has no way to know that happened. Nonetheless, it’s a great feature for tracking specific types of leads over time.

Bounce Rate

Now let’s look at some of the factors that influence how Google and other search engines judge your website’s usefulness, starting with bounce rates.

A “bounce” is when someone visits one of your pages, then leaves. It’s an implication that there was nothing else about your website (perhaps not even the page they visited) that enticed that person into sticking around. In most cases, the ideal journey is an entry onto your website, a visit to the page that contains the information they need, and then a visit to your Contact page to get a hold of you.

The bounce rate is the percentage of users who have come to your website, and then “bounced.” This can be measured both for individual pages and your website as a whole.

You naturally want your bounce rate to be as low as possible, but don’t be surprised to see figures 50 percent and higher in certain situations. Really, it often depends on the page in question. If someone is visiting your website just to find your phone number, for instance, that may register as a bounce—even though the user found exactly what they wanted.

Consistent bounce rates of 70 percent or above can be a reason for concern, however, and a sign that the corresponding pages are not holding interest or integrated well enough into the website.

Average Session Duration

In addition to bounce rate, the average amount of time spent on a webpage is a part of how search engines determine the value a page might have for someone searching for a particular term. This factor then affects how that page is ranked against others in search results.

Attention spans aren’t terribly great on the internet, so what is considered a relatively good amount of time for this metric may be shorter than you expect: about 2 minutes.

Again, it’s best to take this figure on a page-by-page basis, as an FAQ page may supply an answer in a much shorter time than a blog post. If nobody is sticking to a page, though, it is worth assessing the situation and considering revising it to add more interactive or interesting elements (such as a video), or perhaps even to cull the page entirely.

Traffic Sources

Knowing the amount of traffic coming to your website matters, but it’s difficult to devise a specific strategy if you don’t know where this traffic is coming from.

How many visitors are arriving to your website via Google’s standard search results? How many are arriving via your Google local listings? What about through links on your social media accounts or as referrals through places such as Yelp?

Knowing the trends of your traffic sources can provide valuable insight into areas where a digital strategy might need to be adjusted or amplified. This is especially important in traditionally larger sources, such as search results. If you’re not showing up well enough, you need to find out why!

Narrowing the Data Field

These are only a few of the useful data points that can be found regarding your online performance. Of course, t’s not just in having them, though, but also in how you use them.

When analyzing data, we consider several different factors depending on the business involved.

As we do, what time period will we look at, and what will we compare it to? For some more seasonal businesses, comparing fall months to summer months will likely not be as useful as comparing the same months year-over-year.

Where should we narrow the field of visitors to count toward the data? If your business does not offer services outside your state, for example, then website visitors arriving from the other side of the country are not going to matter to you! At the same time, if a lot of people are arriving from far off, it’s worth knowing why.

There’s a whole world of analytics out there to crunch, and strategies to build from them. We won’t lie—it can be intimidating.

That’s why CP Solutions is here, though. We’re your guide through the rapids of information, seeing where the currents lead and guiding the ship with both short- and long-term responses!

If you want to learn more about what we do, or talk about what we can do for you, give us a call at (833) 622-0907. We’ll be happy to schedule a time to chat with you!